The Rainbow in the North
A Short Account of the First Establishment of Christianity in
Rupert's Land by the Church Missionary Society.
By Sarah Tucker.

London: James Nisbet, 1851.

Chapter IX. Threatened Reduction of Missions--Visit
of the Bishop of Montreal--Departure of the Rev. W. Cockran

"Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with
it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."--1
Cor. xii. 26, 27.

THE year 1842 opened brightly on the mission-field in Rupert's
Land. We have seen the state of the Indian Village, and of the
congregation at the Rapids; and those of the Upper and Middle
Churches had continued also to go on well. Nor was it only that
the stakes of this spiritual tabernacle were thus strengthened,
she had likewise lengthened her cords: a new station had been
formed on Cumberland Lake; and the Rev. A. Cowley, who arrived
in 1841, had availed himself of an apparent opening on the Lake
Manitoba.

The only drawback was the state of Mr. Cockran's health. The
Committee at home had frequently urged him to pay a visit to
his native land, that he might recruit his strength and refresh
his spirits. This he had steadfastly declined,--fearing, he said,
lest the comforts of an English home should withdraw his affections
from his few poor sheep in the wilderness. But at last his declining
health had induced him to request permission to withdraw altogether
from the work, and he was only waiting to hear of the appointment
of a successor before he should retire with his family to Canada.

It was at this juncture that our Missionaries received the
unexpected and overwhelming intelligence that, in consequence
of the financial difficulties of the Society, their Missions
on the Red River must be reduced, and the out-stations abandoned.
It is not easy to conceive how heavily this blow fell on the
hearts of these devoted men, who were spending their lives and
strength in the work. Must, then, all the ground that had been
so hardly won be given up again? Must those few sheep who had
been gathered into the fold be driven back into the wilderness
of Heathenism, or the poisonous pastures of Popery? They could
not bear to think of it. Mr. Smithurst writes,--

"If our friends at home did but know the anxiety your
letter has caused, I am sure they would redouble their efforts
to provide a remedy. Were the Indians averse to instruction,
or did we see no fruit from our labours, we might relinquish
our posts with less regret; but our churches are crowded, our
schools are crowded, and the cry is (from the Crees more especially),
'Send us more teachers; give us the word of God,'"

Mr. Cockran's appeal was still stronger:--

"Thousands of pounds are not equal to the value of one
soul, and for this shall we abandon our Missions? Oh, no, dear
Christian friends, we must not so soon weary in keeping possession
for Christ; we must occupy till He come. He who wept over Jerusalem
is surely ready to weep over us, when such a thought enters our
hearts. He seems to say to us from heaven, 'Have I not redeemed
you? Have I not prepared a mansion for you in my Father's kingdom?
Why regard your stuff? Is not the land where God dwells your
own, and is not He Himself your portion? Will ye, then, suffer
My cause to fail from love of this world?'" [See how any
diminution of the income of the Society is felt in its most distant
missions! And let us individually remember, that by withdrawing
our own annual sovereign or weekly penny, we are ourselves bearing
a part in causing this distress.]

Nor did the Missionaries content themselves with words; they
endeavoured, by the most rigid economy and self-denial, so to
reduce the expenses of the Missions as to avert the threatened
blow. Mr. Cockran gave up for the present his intention of removing
into Canada, and as he received a small stipend from the Hudson's
Bay Company as chaplain, determined to make that suffice; and
for two years forbore to draw from the Church Missionary Society
the portion of his salary due from thence, though we find, from
some of his neighbours, that by so doing he and his family were
subjected to privations not often experienced even by industrious
cottagers at home. [This was not the first instance of the kind,
for a similar reduction of the Mission had been contemplated
some years before, and we find, in consequence of this, the following
entry among the benefactions for June 1830:--"Rev W. Cockran,
arrears of salary which had accumulated during four years: £54
8s. 0d."]

By the good providence of Him in whose hands are the hearts
of all, the income of the Society increased again during the
year; and the letters received in 1843 relieved the minds of
the Missionaries from their suspense of twelve months, and enabled
them to pursue their work with fresh energy.

In the summer of 1844 the hearts of our brethren were cheered,
and their hands strengthened, by a visit from the Bishop of Montreal,
who, with a kindness and self-forgetfulness which can scarcely
be too warmly appreciated, undertook a journey of twice one thousand
eight hundred miles in an open canoe for the benefit of this
infant Mission.

His route lay across the Lakes of Nipissin and Huron, along
the treacherous waters of Lake Superior, and then through rivers
rendered almost impassable by frequent cataracts and rapids,
till, after thirty-eight days of exposure and fatigue, he entered
Lake Winnipeg, near the mouth of the Red River, on June the 23d.

We will not spoil the interesting account of tins expedition,
which the Bishop allowed to be published, by attempting to abridge
it; we will only make a few extracts, which will throw additional
light upon our subject.

It was Saturday when he and his little party entered the lake,
and they hoped to reach the Indian Village before nightfall;
but a violent storm obliged them to lay to under the banks, and
they did not arrive till Sunday morning, after a night of weariness
and discomfort. The Bishop then proceeds:--

"It was about nine o'clock, and within half an hour of
the time for Divine Worship. The sight that greeted us was one
that can never he forgotten by me, and the recollection will
always be coupled with feelings of devout thankfulness to God,
and warm appreciation of the blessings conferred by the Church
Missionary Society. After travelling for above a month through
an inhospitable wilderness, and meeting, at intervals, with such
specimens of the heathen savage as I have described, we came
at once, and without any intermediate gradations in the aspect
of things, upon the establishment formed on the low margin of
the river for the same race of people in their Christian state;
and on the morning of the Lord's own blessed day we saw them
already gathering round their pastor, who was before his door,
the children collecting in the same manner with then1 hooks in
their hands. All were decently clothed from head to foot, and
there was a repose and steadiness in their deportment, the seeming
indication of a high and controlling influence on their characters
and hearts. Around were their humble dwellings, with the commencement
of their farms; cattle were gracing in the meadows; the modest
parsonage, with its garden, and the simple but decent clrorcli,
with the school-house as its appendage, forming the leading objects
in the picture, and carrying on the face of them the promise
of blessing. We were amply repaid for all the toils and exposure
of the night. My chaplain naturally felt as I did; and my servant,
an Englishman, to whom everything in the journey was new, told
me afterwards that he could hardly restrain his tears. Nor was
it a worthless testimony that was rendered by one of our old
voyageurs, a French Canadian Roman Catholic, when, addressing
my servant, he said, 'There are your Christian Indians;
it would be well if all the whites were as good as they are.'

"We were greeted by Mr. Smithurst at the water's edge;
and having refreshed ourselves under his roof, we proceeded to
church. There were, perhaps, two hundred and fifty present, all
Indians; and nothing can be more reverential and solemn than
the demeanour and bearing of those people in public worship.
Their costume has a hybrid kind of character, partly European
and partly Indian. The women, for the most part, still wear the
blanket, or else a piece of dark cloth thrown over the head,
with the hair parted smoothly on the forehead. All wear mocassins,
as do the missionaries, and almost all the Europeans in the colony.

"The Morning Service is in English, but the Lessons are
rendered into the Indian tongue by Mr. Cook, the schoolmaster,
who also rendered my sermon sentence by sentence.

"The Evening Service is in the Indian language, which
Mr. Smithurst has mastered to a considerable degree, but the
Lessons are read as in the Morning. About two-thirds of the congregation
are said to understand a simple address in English; and, as far
as this settlement is concerned, the time, I conceive, is fast
approaching when no other language will be required. But let
it be hoped that instruction will be earned far and wide to men
of other tongues.

"I visited the Sunday-school, and found a large attendance.
Mr. Smithurst made the more advanced read to me in the Bible,
and then examined them in the Catechism and the Thirty-nine Articles.
The amount of their knowledge was greater than I could have expected;
and from all that I could gather, the Crees appear to be a thinking
and intelligent tribe.

"After the Evening Service the church was shut up by
an old Indian, acting as a sort of sexton, who had formerly been
a noted sorcerer or medicine man. The day altogether was one
of extraordinary interest; and if the scenes which it presented
could have been witnessed by friends of the Society at home,
they would have needed no further appeal to ensure their liberal
support."

The Bishop then speaks of the confirmations he held at each
of the four churches. The number of the confirmed amounted in
the whole to eight hundred and forty-six, and would have been
about one thousand had not many of the candidates been absent;
some were engaged in the buffalo hunt on the prairies, and others
were gone with the annual boats to York Fort.

He held preparatory meetings of the candidates at each of
the different stations, and expresses himself as greatly satisfied
with the result. He speaks particularly of one at the Rapids,
where he says,--

"I was much struck by the correct and serious deportment
of about seventy young girls, who were brought together without
their mothers or elders of any kind to restrain them; and I could
not help thinking that it would have been difficult to collect
the same number in an English parish who would have preserved
the reverence which these girls did, even in the vacant intervals
before and after the service, and during the calling over of
their names by Mr. Cockran."

Mr. Cowley came from Manitoba Lake to receive priest's orders;
and the Bishop ordained Mr. M'Allum, then in charge of a school
at the Upper Settlement, both deacon and priest. Altogether,
he spent seventeen days in the colony; and, speaking of its general
state, he says,--

"It was truly a very interesting spectacle to behold
the churches filled at the confirmation, and at the other public
services, by a people thus brought under the yoke of the Gospel,
the great body of whom have Indian blood in their veins, and
most of whom were originally heathens; and the interest was indescribably
heightened by the deep attention with which they listened, and
the devotion with which those who were confirmed knelt to receive
the imposition of hands; the comfortable hope shedding its ray
over the solemnity, that they did in sincerity devote themselves
to Christ.

"I must not, however, be understood to mean that in all
the pleasing pictures I "have given, the old Adam does not
anywhere, lurk in disguise, nor to express an unqualified hope
that among those who now re-enrolled themselves as soldiers of
the Cross there will not be instances of mortifying inconsistency,
perhaps of unhappy defection: the Indians have strong passions,
and are often thrown into circumstances unfavourable to holiness:
but, allowing for the necessary intermixture of tares with the
wheat, I believe that the congregations at the Red River may
be called exemplary; and that the Church has taken root in the
colony, with the fairest prospect of a continuance and increase
of blessed fruits of a practical kind." [The Bishop confirms
what has been remarked by other travellers as to the superiority,
in the steady and correct habits of the people, of the Protestant
portion of the colony over the Roman Catholic population, and
does not hesitate to attribute it to the difference of their
religion.]

This visit of the Bishop had been most welcome to the whole
colony, and the inhabitants vied with each other in showing him
all possible attention. He received addresses of thanks from
the Clergy, from the Protestant inhabitants generally, and a
special one from the Indian congregation.

"We were," he says, "loaded with presents:
several of the Indian women were busy, up to the last moment,
in finishing for us some little token of remembrance, and we
received some beautiful specimens of their work either in beads,
or in dyed hair of the moose deer, or in porcupine quills. One
woman, with the peculiar modesty of manner so general among the
Indians, came forward just aft I was stepping into my canoe with
a simple bark basket of her own workmanship."

The Indian Village, as it had been the first, so it was the
last spot which the Bishop visited. In the morning of July 10,
Pigwys and his wife, men, women, and children, gathered round
to hid adieu to their "Great Praying Father;" and the
Bishop set out on his fatiguing voyage again, followed by the
prayers and blessings of the whole community.

It had been just before this visit from the Bishop, that Mr.
Cockran had had an affecting proof of the attachment and kindness
of his own people at the Rapids. A fire broke out upon his premises,
which speedily consumed the barn filled with wheat; cowhouses,
stables, fences, were all destroyed; and the house, which was
of wood, and thatched with reeds, would have shared the same
fate, had it not been for the exertions of the neighbours. The
wind, too, providentially changed, and their dwelling was preserved.
Several persons watched all night, lest a spark should be hidden
in the thatch; and the next day Mr. Cockran found a number of
them making plans to repair the mischief, with as little loss
as possible to himself. Some promised to bring logs, others would
contribute posts, many engaged to come and work; while another
party assured him that he should not feel the want of wheat,
for that they would supply him. Governor Finlayson also called
to offer him everything he could want to repair this calamity;
and the sympathy and kindness they experienced enabled Mr. and
Mrs. Cock-ran to rejoice even in their losses.

The church at the Rapids, as we have already said, was now
far too small for the congregation, not more than three-fourths
of whom could find admittance, and the school children could
never be present. Mr. Cock-ran, looking forward to the future,
determined to make an effort to build a new one of stone, instead
of wood, which should be large enough for the increasing wants
of the settlement. Accordingly, he called a meeting of the people.

"Silver and gold," he writes, "they had none;
but stones, lime, shingles, boards, timber, and labour wore cheerfully
promised, to an extent that perfectly astonished me. The shingle-makers
proposed to give ten thousand shingles each, the lime-burners
each four hundred bushels, and boards and timber were promised
in the same liberal manner. One black curry-head, descended by
his father's side from the sons of Ham, stood up in his leathern
coat, and said, 'I will help to the amount of 10l.' The
eyes of all were turned upon him, and I saw a smile on every
face. I said, 'I believe our brethren think you will not be able
to raise such a sum.' Raising his arm he exclaimed, 'Here is
my body: it is at your service. It is true I cannot square a
stone, nor lay one, but there will be the floor and the roof:
turn me to them, and you will see, if God gives me life and health,
if I will not work out the value.'"

In the summer of 1845 the new church was begun, but, notwithstanding
the efforts of the people, Mr. Cockran found his resources beginning
to fail, when he was greatly relieved by the unexpected donation
of fifty pounds from one of the officers of the Hudson's Bay
Company; and soon after, his son, who was now in England for
education, sent him thirty pounds, which had been collected for
him by a clergyman at home.

All this while there was no improvement in the health of our
Missionary; and now the time arrived when he was to leave, as
he believed for ever, the scene of his labours for so long a
period, and his people were to part from one who had for seventeen
years been their pastor, their adviser, their friend, and to
whom, under God, they owed every temporal and spiritual blessing.

The Rev. E. James was expected in the autumn of 1840, and
Mr. Cockran was obliged to leave the Rapids in the preceding
June. Mr. Cowley, who had come from his own station to take the
temporary charge of this, thus writes:--

"Sunday, June 14.--The trying hour was come. Never do
I expect to forget the last look which some of the people gave
their pastor, as they retired from the church, where, from its
first erection, they had heard the voice of him whom they now
should hear no more. Their hearts were too full for utterance;
and the only expression they could give to their feelings was
a flood of tears, as each came up, embraced his hand, and turned
away without a word.

"June 15.--Early all was hustle, the dawn was seized
upon for prayer. Before breakfast was over the canoe was in sight.
It was too early for a large crowd to assemble to try his feelings
by another farewell, yet a considerable number awaited him at
the water's edge, and received his final blessing. My own spirits
were overcome, and my inmost soul was pierced."

In October, the Rev. E. and Mrs. James arrived; and we would
transcribe Mr. James's account of his surprise and pleasure,
as he came up the river, at the sight of the Indian Village,
with its happy-looking inhabitants and merry children, greeting
him as he passed along, were it not that it would be almost a
repetition of the description given by the Bishop of Montreal.

Nor was he less pleased with his own immediate charge--the
Rapids. One thousand eight hundred people were now scattered
along an extent of twelve miles; the old church more than filled,
the new one was progressing, and the number of communicants had
increased to a hundred and fifty.

Mr. James carried on with zeal and energy the work begun by
his predecessor; and as we turn over the pages of his journal,
and read of one soul and another brought to a concern for their
eternal welfare, or watch the last hours of many a rejoicing
believer, we are tempted to enter more fully into detail.

But the number at the head of this chapter warns us to forbear;
for we have still to lay before our readers the history of distant
stations, and after a few brief notices of the next three years
on the banks of the Red River, we intend in the two following
chapters to carry them to Cumberland and Manitoba Lakes.

One passage, however, we must transcribe from Mr. James's
journal, not only as a testimony to our former Missionary, but
as an instance of the way in which a generous mind will appreciate
the work of others:--

"January 20, 1847.--Thermometer, 47° below zero.
Cold intense, yet my ride to the Indian settlement was not uncomfortable.
The roads were delightful, and as T clashed along their glassy
face my thoughts were necessarily carried back to the time when
things looked so different; when Mr. Cockran could with difficulty
thread his way through the tangled wood, when there were no neat
cottages on this hand or that; no traveller's Christian greeting,
no distant view of sheltering parsonage or house of God. Literally
nothing to cheer the way of that devoted man whose zeal nothing
could tire, whose 'patience of hope' was never exhausted, before
whose resolve every obstacle gave way, and whose success is neither
thirty, nor sixty, but an hundred-fold, even in this present
life."

Mr. Cockran had retired to Toronto, where the rest and freedom
from responsibility were blessed to the partial restoration of
his health; his heart was still among his former flocks, and
in 1847 he gladly responded to an invitation from the Hudson's
Bay Company to undertake the chaplaincy of the Upper Church and
settlement.

There he still is, and there may he long remain, to proclaim
the Gospel that he loves, and to witness to the faithfulness
of God, who has promised, "As thy days, so shall thy strength
be."

We must not, however, leave the Red River, without mentioning
a Missionary Meeting that was held in the church at the Rapids
on Dec. 2, 1847.

It was a day of great interest, for it was the first public
meeting that had ever been held in Rupert's Land; and people
came from all quarters to hear of the work of God among other
heathen nations. They had hitherto known very little on the subject;
but grounds of appeal could not be wanting to a people on whom
the Society had for the last twenty-seven years been conferring
such inestimable benefits, and who were still continually reminded
of what they had themselves once been, by the sound of the conjurer's
drum and melancholy shout whenever any of the heathens encamped
in their neighbourhood.

Everything they heard surprised and moved them: many an eye
was moist, and though they were again suffering from two years
of scarcity, yet "the abundance of their joy and their deep
poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality;" and
the collection, beyond all expectation, amounted to 10 l.
9 s. 2 d: 5l. was also collected here, and
5l. 18s. 1d. at the Middle Church on the
following Sunday,--altogether, 21 l., 7s. 3 d.;
a large sum under all the circumstances of the case, though,
as one good old man said, "It was all too little to offer
to the Society, but it was a beginning, and he hoped the Society
would forgive them for not stirring sooner."

Three weeks afterwards, a man, who had literally no money
in his possession at the time, brought Mr. James five shillings,
the first he had received since the day of the meeting.

We shall only return to the Red River to give a brief account
of its present state.

We shall close the chapter by mentioning the circumstances
that led to the opening of a Mission at Cumberland.

Anxiety for the spiritual welfare of their relations and countrymen
had, from the first, been a characteristic feature in the Christians
at the Red River; we have seen how this feeling manifested itself
among the converts at the Rapids, and those at the Indian Village
soon showed the same earnest desires.

Among the settlers there, were several families from the neighbourhood
of Cumberland Lake, whose hearts expanded towards their former
companions in the wilderness; their conversion was the frequent
subject of their prayers, they took every opportunity of sending
them some awakening message, and the answers to these messages
were so encouraging that it was at length decided to send a labourer
to the spot.

The ordained Missionaries could neither of them be spared,
but it was thought that a native Catechist might prepare the
ground by opening a school, and giving the people some elementary
instruction, and it only now remained to seek for a fitting agent.